Donald Trump’s decisive victory creates an opportunity for historic change in the Middle East and globally, while strengthening Israel’s international position.

During my tenure as Israel’s Ambassador to the US and UN, I witnessed firsthand how the differing approaches between the Trump and Biden administrations affected Israel’s national security.

President Biden deserves gratitude and appreciation for military aid and defending Israel at the UN. However, we must acknowledge that the Biden administration’s pressure on Israel and frequent public criticism were serious missteps. These errors complicated achieving war objectives, gave hope to our enemies, and delayed both the end of fighting, the return of hostages, and prospects for regional peace.

Trump’s reelection, having already proven his openness to breakthrough thinking and initiatives, enables a strategic correction and turning point.

Returning to Pressure

First, a dramatic shift from the Biden administration’s ineffectiveness against the “head of the octopus” – Iran – is required. The US must revive Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran, but this time economic pressure must be accompanied by military threat and a clear objective of regime change in Tehran. This is key to security stability in the Middle East and advancing “warm peace” between Israel and regional states.

Regrettably, the Biden administration’s strong desire to return to the nuclear deal with Iran and its insistence on old paradigms regarding the Palestinian issue led to opposite results. Palestinians entrenched in their refusal and continued inciting and funding terror. Hamas and Hezbollah hoped American pressure to end the war would cause Israel to abandon its objectives, consequently causing regional states, including some that signed the Abraham Accords, to question warming relations with Israel. Not coincidentally, no additional Arab state joined the peace circle during Biden’s administration.

I have no doubt President Trump will act differently. As someone who previously assisted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s efforts and took significant steps like recognizing Morocco’s sovereignty in Western Sahara – to incentivize Arab leaders to normalize relations with Israel – I believe the Trump administration’s return to pressuring Iran, combined with direct incentives to regional states, will bring us much closer to a peace agreement with Saudi Arabia and subsequently many other Muslim nations.

While Trump declared during his campaign that he seeks quick war endings, I’m certain he and his team understand well that ending the war in Gaza and Lebanon requires defeating Hamas and Hezbollah and restoring Israeli deterrence, otherwise we’ll be condemned to recurring wars in our region. Trump understands that only Israel’s clear victory will bring long-term stability and quiet.

A Distorted Structure Called the UN

The major change I hope for and believe achievable in the Trump era is in the UN arena. Israel’s enemies understood that, given the difficulty of defeating us on the battlefield, they could exploit the UN’s distorted structure to block Israel and embarrass the US.

The UN and its organizations – including the Human Rights Council, The Hague court, UNRWA and others – have deteriorated to unprecedented lows and become weapons in terrorist organizations’ hands.

President Trump isn’t a blind follower of “multilateralism” at any cost. He previously completely cut UNRWA’s budget when convinced the organization perpetuates rather than resolves the conflict. Now we must convince President Trump that the US, as the UN’s largest funder, should completely cease transferring approximately $19 billion annually to an organization that has lost its way and values until necessary reforms are implemented. Such change would create a global shift that would also influence and strengthen Israel’s international standing.

If Israel’s government acts wisely with the new administration, as it did previously during President Trump’s first term, we can witness another four years of diplomatic and security achievements that will secure Israel’s future.

Published in  Israel Hayom, November 7, 2024.

On the eve of Yom Kippur, I know that we are supposed to atone for our sins and forgive others. But one year into a multi-front war in which Israel is battling for its life, I am not in a forgiving mood.

I cannot and do not forgive those around the world who fail to sufficiently support Israel in this existential moment or who weaken the Jewish state.

I find it hard to forgive the Biden-Harris administration for handcuffing Israel at so many critical times over the past year and preventing swifter, neater victory. This includes the current moment when a crushing Israeli blow against Iran is being held back by American angst over escalation and slavish belief in long-invalidated diplomatic “solutions.”

Joe Biden indeed has helped Israel defend itself in so many concrete ways, and for this he deserves deep gratitude. But this ought to be the moment for a crushing Israeli and American blow against Iran’s nuclear military project, not another restricting and enfeebling American bear hug.

There is no way to forgive world leaders like French President Macron, British Prime Minister Starmer, and Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau for slapping arms embargoes on Israel. They profess “robust” support for Israel’s “right” to defend itself but deny Israel the wherewithal to do so when it is in actual need. Their protestations of friendship for Israel have been shown shallow.

Undermining Israel instead of resisting evil

Only an idiot can forgive Western politicians for continuing to support UNRWA, instead of collapsing and replacing it with aid mechanisms that do not brazenly serve as a platform for the never-ending Palestinian “war of return” against Israel, and with facilities that do not serve as actual armed bases for Hamas. The fact that the aid agency is a leading contender for the Nobel Peace Prize (to be awarded this weekend!) is proof of the utter-gutter rank hostility of some Europeans to Israel. Ugh.

The Jewish People and true defenders of freedom globally never should forgive United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who will be remembered, if at all, as a slimy stain on the history of the UN. He has yet to denounce the massacre and sexual atrocities committed by Hamas murderers on October 7, and has not led any efforts to declare them a terrorist organization, nor has he unequivocally condemned Iran’s direct missile attacks on Israel.

And oh yeah, he loves and defends UNRWA with a passion matched only by his gushing embrace of every dictator (like the Turkish and Iranian presidents) who seek to destroy Israel.

Guterres and his wretched army of high-minded diplomats are all about promoting Israeli perfidy instead of resisting real evil. No forgiveness.

I am at a loss to understand, and certainly cannot forgive, Western leaders who davka in the wake of October 7 have doubled down on the drive for Palestinian statehood; people like US President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, as well as European leaders who have unilaterally “recognized” Palestinian statehood to defiantly dump on Israel. This beggars the imagination. It is strategic insanity. And it is profoundly antagonistic.

The call for an “urgent” process leading to Palestinian statehood runs contrary to Israel’s revised, most basic security understandings; indeed, to Israel’s very existence for the medium to long term. A prosperous and safe Israel is just not compatible with Iran-armed, eliminationist Palestinian nationalism – which alas, is all we can expect of the Palestinians at the moment.

None of this seems to have penetrated the closed thinking, the stale air of Western-liberal foreign policy establishments. In my view, there is no forgiveness for delusionary, dangerous, duplicitous diplomacy regarding runaway Palestinian statehood.

There is really no absolution for the American, Canadian, and European university presidents who have found it impossible to unequivocally condemn antisemitic activity on their campuses or end violent anti-Israel, anti-Jewish, anti-American, and anti-Western protests.

Calling for the genocide of Jews is not necessarily against the universities’ codes of conduct, because “it depends on the context,” University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill averred to Congress, and she was backed by the presidents of Harvard and MIT. “It depends on the context” has got to be the most iconic, infamous, immoral, and contemptible phrase of the year.

These supposed intellectual leaders have created a permission structure for antisemitism. No forgiveness.

State governors, provincial premiers, city mayors, police chiefs, and other local leaders are in deep deficit, too – undeserving of forgiveness and deserving of punishment at the ballot box – for failing to combat the radical Islamists rampaging through the streets of North America and Europe. The rioters burn American, Canadian, and British flags, not just Israel’s, and roar “Death” to America, Canada, and Britain, not just to Israel… But local councilors are cowed into silence.

Government leaders at all levels are similarly undeserving of forgiveness for propagating moral equivalence between antisemitism and “Islamophobia,” something that has become an automatic catechism in every statement against racism and violence.

Everybody knows, but is curiously afraid to acknowledge, that antisemitism and anti-Zionism (which are today indistinguishable) have become genocidal in their agenda and brutally exclusionary to entire communities – against all Jews. Furthermore, the false narrative about Muslims being under attack after the Palestinian October 7 atrocities has it backwards. It is Moslem groups and their extremist leftist allies who are fueling the surge in antisemitism.

Entire books could be filled with the sins of Western media against Israel: for its willing consumption of Hamas propaganda about civilian casualties; its failure to cover the tyrannical, terrorist takeovers of Palestinian and Lebanese societies by Hamas and Hezbollah; its failure to track and raise the alarm against Iran’s hegemonic march across the Mideast; its failure to significantly cover the devastation of Israeli northern and southern communities in the current wars, and more.

No forgiveness possible.

Issues back home

On the home front in Israel, there are people and movements that I find hard to forgive too, although I want to. These are leaders and actors who should make amends and can be granted absolution if they repair their ways. This runs in all political directions.

There are leftist generals still purveying their hackneyed, clearly-proven-wrong security paradigms on the evening news. There are army reservists who threatened to desert the IDF (encouraging the enemy to attack last year), including some who once again are now threatening to refuse-to-serve unless our hostages are “brought home” immediately (as if that were possible)!

There are newscasters who know only to vent “rage” against the government, never capable of broadcasting messages of resilience or stories of heroism, even on the recent first anniversary of October 7 and even as Israel remains at war and needs national unity.

There are ultra-Orthodox leaders who impudently still cannot see the need to assimilate haredi (ultra-Orthodox) men into sharing the national security burden in concrete military terms.

There are right-wing rabble rousers who spread poisonous messages about the “treason” of the Left; and government leaders who still have not shouldered responsibility even in words for the catastrophe of October 7, even as they claim credit for Israel’s appreciable recent victories.

Yes, there is teshuva, repentance, needed at home, and here there is room for brotherly forgiveness – but that is for a different article at a different time.

Published in The Jerusalem Post, October 12, 2024

“I will never forget my first impressions: the smell of sour milk that filled the bullet-pocked, blasted, half-burned houses; the contents of their kitchen cabinets scattered in the rooms, as if blown away by a hurricane.”

And so begins the haunting first chapter of ‘Israel Alone’, the latest book just released by world renowned French philosopher, writer and activist, Bernard-Henri Lévy, or BHL is he is most commonly known, describing in searing emotion his first reaction of being in Kfar Aza in southern Israel, the day after the October 7th massacre by Hamas.

The book, a ‘cri de coeur’, that quintessentially French phrase that translates to ‘a cry from the heart’, weaves from Lévy shock and pain at what he saw from the graves of southern Israel, to how 11 months later, the Jewish state today stands alone, “decidedly, dramatically alone.”

However, I cannot help but keep returning to his reference about the “sour milk”. At the same time as Lévy was in Kfar Aza, I was nearby in Kibbutz Be’eri, another valley of insurmountable death and destruction, in the immediate days after the Hamas pogrom.

When you stand in a place like this, your body might freeze, but your senses are immediately heightened. For me, it was the unmistakable stench of death, the gun residue and the food still left out, from the Shabbat dinners the night before October 7th.

Levi’s account resonates on a profoundly personal level

Shaken to the core at the images that were unfolding on that infamous ‘Black Sabbath’ morning, Lévy flew to Israel the very next day, in order to bear witness and give voice to the voiceless.

As Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Weisel once said, “for the dead and the living, we must bear witness. For not only are we responsible for the memories of the dead, we are also responsible for what we are doing with those memories.” And the modern-Jewish state has had no greater ‘witness’, no greater champion, than Lévy, who had dedicated his life to the defending the justness and “the greatness of Israel.”

While in Be’eri, Sderot, Kfar Aza and the site of the Nova music festival massacre, Levy met with survivors, soldiers, first responders and families in agonizing pain, not knowing about the fate of their loved ones, who had just been taken hostage into Gaza.

After opening his book with an emotional punch to the gut about the indescribable horror he witnessed in southern Israel, Lévy proceeds to make the despondent, yet utterly convincing case how, notwithstanding the worst massacre to befall the Jewish people since the Holocaust, the Jewish state stands desperately alone today, in a battle between good and evil.

For Lévy, on October 7th, “more than the Israeli or Jewish soul was murdered here; it was our common conscience”. Today the role of victim and oppressor has been inverted, while basic principles of justice abandoned. And as the State of Israel has been perversely singled out as some kind of international pariah, the monstrosity of Hamas’ crimes and ongoing captivity of hostages has somehow been relegated to barely an afterthought, or unconscionably worse, their barbarism, rape and cruelty justified. Lévy makes the case how this represents not only the abandonment of the world’s sole Jewish state, but an abandonment of the collective moral conscience of the West.

Jews are alone

Though the book is titled ‘Israel Alone’, in some respects, it may as well be titled ‘The Jews Alone’. Simply put, with the exception of some heroic voices, we have been abandoned. Abandoned by world leaders, abandoned by self-righteous politicians, abandoned by civil society and abandoned by all those with whom the Jews stood with, defended and fought for.

Reflecting on this unabated unleashing of Jew-hate and abandonment after October 7th, and even downright support for Hamas in the West, Lévy comes to the painful, reluctant, yet tragically accurate realization that, “no land on this planet is a shelter for Jews.” Invoking ‘Amalek’, the Jewish people’s evil pre-cursor to Hitler and Sinwar, Lévy declares “he has come out of limbo to bang on our doors and drum in our ears.”

In short, as Lévy concludes “Yes, the Jews are more alone than they have ever been”, however, he adds an important caveat, that “tragedy is Greek, not Jewish”.

Despite taking his readers on a journey of utter despair, agony and questioning the Jews place in the world, Lévy ends with an inspiring affirmation in our faith, our history and the indispensable centrality of Zionism and Israel to our future.

Lévy understands that the Jewish people are not defined solely by heartache, loss and the pain that history’s ‘Amaleks’ seek to inflict upon us, but that our collective story is also one of unyielding hope, courage, liberation, and resilience.

Indeed, “the soul, mind, and genius of Judaism are standing firm amid tumult and torment” says Lévy, in his concluding words.

Published in The Jerusalem Post, September 19, 2024.

Four years ago, the historic Abraham Accords between the UAE, Bahrain, and Israel were signed on the White House lawn. Morocco and Sudan soon followed. In the midst of the extremely challenging COVID-19 pandemic, a ray of light heralding a new era of peace, integration, and cooperation broke through the darkness.

Hamas’ October 7 massacre led to an outbreak of regional conflict. Yet just as the original Abraham Accords peace agreements emerged during the COVID-19 era, the next stage of Middle East cooperation and integration—Abraham Accords 2.0—can emerge from the current period of war and tension.

Following the signing of the Abraham Accords, trade ties skyrocketed, over a million people traveled between the Accords’ member countries on new direct flights, and groundbreaking partnerships were announced in fields such as innovation, space, AI, water, cyber and sustainable development. Inspiring initiatives to advance interfaith harmony were launched, including the opening of Abu Dhabi’s Abrahamic Family House, and Muslim-Jewish leadership delegations between Israel and Morocco.

Yet even as Abraham Accords ties grew, a lack of robust American leadership over the last several years allowed China, Russia, and Iran to make inroads into both the MENA and Sahel regions. Then, Hamas’ October 7 rampage of murder, kidnappings, and rape, and the subsequent terror attacks by Iran’s proxy network, created an enormous challenge to regional peace. Extremist media networks like Al Jazeera spread incitement and distrust, while Muslim Brotherhood and Iranian-linked groups sought to use the conflict to promote instability.

At this time of war, the potential of the Abraham Accords to transform the Middle East from a source of conflict into a hub of innovation, economic growth, and tolerance not only remains but is more urgent than ever. Now is the time to launch the Abraham Accords 2.0 in order to shape a future of stability, prosperity, and peace for the region. The next stage of the Abraham Accords must be based both on expanding the circle of peace to include additional Arab and Muslim countries and on advancing paradigm-shifting regional economic, technological, and security initiatives with global impact.

On the economic level, such initiatives should involve advancing the India-Middle East-Europe Corridor such that it encompasses not only overland trade but energy and communications connectivity as well. IMEC would not only contribute to infrastructure development, employment, and global supply chain resilience, but could serve to counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative in the region. The existing Free Trade and Qualified Industrial Zones agreements between the United States and numerous regional countries could be expanded and leveraged to accelerate economic growth and integration.

Israel’s start-up dynamism and the GCC’s impressive track record of executing advanced technological projects could be combined via U.S.-led trilateral and multi-lateral frameworks to produce breakthroughs in innovation. Completing the regulatory frameworks and ensuring an encouraging public environment for deepening bilateral ties between current and potential Abraham Accords countries is critical as well.

On the security level, a U.S.-led Middle East Security Architecture encompassing air and missile defense, drones, space, satellites, maritime security, cybersecurity, intelligence sharing, joint exercises, and R&D could empower regional allies to combat threats on their own. Such a regional alliance would help deter and counter Iran, thereby decreasing the chances of an all-out war and increasing the probability of a quick and decisive victory if such a war were to break out. It would also help protect U.S. bases, while enabling an eventual shift of U.S. assets to other theatres, including the Indo-Pacific.

Looking forward, once Hamas has been defeated, and the Gaza Strip has been demilitarized and deradicalized, Gaza could be integrated into new regional frameworks for economic, energy, and logistical cooperation. This would contribute to the stability and growth of the entire region.

Turning the Abraham Accords 2.0 vision into a reality will require strong American leadership and a holistic approach that combines diplomatic, economic, and security components. It will also require a willingness by the United States and all of its allies and partners in the region to actively invest in promoting Abraham Accords ties and breaking down long-standing barriers to cooperation.

The ongoing conflict and geopolitical tensions should not lead us to abandon the successful strategies that led to the Abraham Accords. It is indeed more urgent than ever that we take ambitious steps to deepen these historic agreements, expand warm peace through strength, and shape a brighter future in the Middle East. At the darkest of times, the greatest opportunities can appear.

The article was written together with Aryeh Lightstone is the former US Special Envoy for Economic Normalization and Executive Director of the Abraham Accords Peace Institute (AAPI).

Published in RealClear world, September 14, 2024.

• Public diplomacy is an essential element in Israel’s war effort, but is important to Israel’s international standing at all times.
• Israel’s Public Diplomacy Directorate was unprepared for a crisis and improvised solutions, which have been insufficient. The IDF’s Spokesperson Unit was better prepared.
• A larger Public Diplomacy Directorate with full-time professional staff that goes beyond on-camera spokespeople and includes researchers, public relations professionals, graphic artists, representatives of intelligence bodies and more is necessary.
• The various government offices handling public diplomacy, as well as the IDF Spokesman’s Unit should improve their cooperation and coordination.

Introduction:

Public diplomacy has long been a problematic area for Israel. The Hebrew word for “public diplomacy,” hasbara, is a hint at Israel’s longstanding challenges in this area. “Hasbara” means “explanation” – but explaining what happened after the fact is far from sufficient to meet Israel’s international challenges.

Effective public diplomacy is essential for Israel at all times, but that need is even more acute in wartime, when distorted images and interpretations of the Jewish state’s actions can limit its ability to defend itself and attain its war aims. While “good PR” is not a magic wand that will solve all of Israel’s problems – especially when there is a sizable global audience predisposed against the Jewish state for a variety of reasons – it can only help, and “bad PR” is an unforced error that continues to damage Israel’s international standing and war effort.

Israel’s government needs a fully staffed team of professionals in communications, marketing, intelligence and other relevant areas to bring positive results that will support Israel’s war effort and boost its standing in calmer times.

The Misgav Institute hosted a webinar with three experts who played a role in Israel’s public diplomacy in the war with Hamas that began on October 7: former government spokesman Eylon Levy, Lt. Col. (Res.) Jonathan Conricus  and  Matt Krieger, CEO of strategic communications firm Gova10 and the chief communications officer of the campaign advocating for Israeli-American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin’s release from Hamas captivity. This paper is based on the insights reached in that webinar.

The Problems

 Civilian public diplomacy efforts: 

When Operation Swords of Iron began, Israel’s National Public Diplomacy Directorate, a unit within the Prime Minister’s Office, had a new head and a small staff. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not have a spokesperson for the foreign press. The system that eventually came about, of daily online briefings in English and a system of coordinating television and radio interviews for official government spokespeople, was improvised after October 7. Publisher Rotem Sella, of his own initiative, sought out media contacts (including the author of this paper, who was unable to participate) to try to share details of the October 7 massacre with the world. Levy was one of the first people he called, as well as journalist Tal Heinrich. Within weeks, their volunteer operation was absorbed by the Public Diplomacy Directorate, with some of the staff paid by a contractor to avoid byzantine government hiring practices, but many remaining volunteers.

This system has mostly remained, with a rotating team of spokespeople for daily briefings and TV and radio interviews, but little other staff to research and prepare the spokespeople. Nor did the Public Diplomacy Directorate hold regular briefings in any languages other than English and, for a time, Arabic.

The limitations of the current system are such that the address for handling print and online written media inquiries and requests remains unclear, and the spokespeople in the briefings are given broad talking points, instead of detailed information to answer journalists’ questions. They are also unable to take initiative and pitch the stories that Israel may want to be widely known, both due to time constraints and their narrow remit.

The National Public Diplomacy Directorate has tried to work on Israel’s online presence, and reports launching over 200 advertising campaigns, using physical billboards as well as digital platforms, producing videos and still content emphasizing Israel’s messages. They launched a website titled the “October 7 Hamas Massacre.” They also invited influential figures to their command center. The directorate reports over 2 billion hits for its campaigns, and 43 million for the Hamas massacre website in its first three days.

IDF public diplomacy efforts: 

The IDF Spokesperson’s Unit dominates Israel’s international public image. The unit is a veritable empire compared to the Public Diplomacy Directorate, but when men in uniform are conveying Israel’s messages, “it begins to look a little bit like martial law,” as Levy put it in the webinar. And while this has not always been the case, the prominent representatives of the IDF in the media in this war have not represented Israel’s diverse population.

The unit has, to a great extent, resolved some of its past problems in international communications, such as its longtime penchant for prioritizing access for Hebrew-language media outlets even in times of international crisis. In the current war, IDF Spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari has put international media at the center of his strategy, viewing global communications as a tool through which to enable the IDF to operate. Hagari also has sufficiently proficient English to address foreign outlets himself, which he has done in briefings, press conferences, and appearances in foreign news segments.

However, like Israeli government communications, much of this came together in wartime rather than be part of an overarching strategy. Many of the prominent figures in the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit in recent months were reservists who left jobs and families to spend their time helping the army, which in most cases was not sustainable long-term, though some have been hired by the IDF.

There is also a lack of effective coordination between the IDF and the Public Diplomacy Directorate; Levy said he would look to Conricus’s social media accounts for information – as opposed to communication being shared between the offices in which they served in a timely manner. This is true for the Foreign Ministry and Diaspora Affairs Ministry, which engage in related activities, as well. 

Recommendations 

Israel needs a formal, professional, civilian body responsible for public diplomacy, with a budget and full-time paid personnel enabling it to operate more fully at all times, not only in wartime. Having consistent names and faces that journalists and the public know will allow for more effective communication when a crisis breaks out. That full-time public diplomacy team would prepare a crisis communications plan, to be put in place during wartime.

That plan could include “enlisting” additional spokespeople temporarily, but capable people able to represent the government on camera in key languages – not only English – should be employed full-time. Foreign Ministry employees, many of whom have useful experience in this area, can be loaned out to the Public Diplomacy Directorate for this purpose, in a similar way to how some are loaned out as diplomatic advisers to government ministries and the Knesset speaker.

Visual communications are often as important as what is said by the spokespeople. Therefore, while their abilities are the highest priority, the team of spokespeople should have an appropriate gender balance and reflect Israel’s diverse society.

Permanent spokespeople are not the only employees that a more robust public diplomacy system needs. The IDF Spokesman’s Unit should have an intelligence officer permanently on its staff to examine open-source intelligence for Israel’s advantage, as well as to rapidly respond to accusations of wrongdoing. Public relations experts who would not necessarily be on camera are important as well, to field reporters’ questions and work with non-broadcast media. Graphic and video artists are needed, as well as fact-checkers and researchers to support those who are speaking to the press and the public.

A larger staff for the PMO Public Diplomacy Directorate would also allow for the cultivation of relationships with journalists, facilitating deeper and more frequent background briefings and the pitching of stories that show Israel in a more favorable light.

More foreign media should be allowed to embed with IDF troops in Gaza. When foreign media are allowed to directly accompany the IDF, this often leads to more accurate and nuanced portrayals of IDF operations.

The Public Diplomacy Directorate is meant to coordinate between different bodies communicating the government’s messages at home and abroad – it must make a greater effort in that respect, especially by integrating the IDF into the broader structure, without putting obstacles in front of its efforts that are working well. Cooperation between the Public Diplomacy Directorate, the Foreign Ministry and the Diaspora Affairs Ministry should be deepened as well, to ensure that a consistent message is being sent and that all of Israel’s public diplomacy assets worldwide are being used effectively.

While Ireland, Norway, and Spain announced unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state, the IDF conducted large-scale counterterror operations in the Jenin area – part of the never-ending effort to thwart terrorism’s strongholds in the West Bank.

Since Oct. 7, the security forces have conducted over 4,000 arrests in Judea and Samaria, averaging a staggering 18 per day. This fundamental component allows Israel to maintain security stability and curb terrorism in areas under Palestinian Authority control – the same authority now being recognized as a state by some. Without such uncompromising measures, Israel would likely be unable to independently confront the threats it faces.

Hamas swiftly claimed credit, explaining to Norway’s prime minister and other naive leaders that far from bolstering moderates, such recognition following the October massacre is considered an achievement for the terror group.

“Recognition of the Palestinian state came after the ‘Al-Aqsa Flood’ war and the steadfastness of the ‘resistance,'” boasted senior Hamas official Husam Badran. His words were published while footage of the abduction of the observers from Nahal Oz filled television screens in Israel.

While the hypocrisy of this move is obvious, it lacks an understanding of the potential implications it may have on the balance of power within the Palestinian camp itself: Crowning Hamas as the factor by virtue of which the Palestinians will receive this achievement, together with their high levels of public Palestinian support, and with the background of an already raging struggle over the succession of Mahmoud Abbas’ seat, could pave the way for the terror organization to take over the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank as well.

And not only that. This step, which will be credited to Hamas, is necessarily a tailwind for the entire “axis of resistance” and a strengthening of the path of the Islamic extremists wherever they are. Instead of uniting around the position that the way of terror is flawed and will not yield achievements, the message of this step is the opposite: Terror pays off.

In practical terms, the impact of unilateral recognition is quite limited. The recognition does not address the issue of borders, and in this way, most countries of the world have already recognized a Palestinian state when it was admitted as an observer to the UN.

The impact of these declarations is mainly on the level of awareness and the momentum they could create, especially when they occur in parallel with proceedings at the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice in The Hague and at a time when the US administration is pressuring Israel to agree to a deal, one component of which is a commitment to a process that will eventually lead to a Palestinian state.

In this sense, the US’ reservations about the unilateral recognition move are very important, both to prevent a momentum of more countries recognizing a Palestinian state and to prevent this idea from gaining a foothold in Washington itself. After the heavy price Israel has paid and is still paying, the political leadership not only has the right but is obligated to take a sober, cautious, and suspicious stance. Israel needs to rely only on itself and avoid entering processes that would be difficult, if not impossible, to exit.

In the security arena, whatever the definition of the Palestinians may be, Israel will need to continue its presence and do everything it is currently doing for its security, without any compromises.

It will have to continue to maintain absolute and effective control over the borders and the seamline, ensure security and freedom of operation within the territory, and prevent processes such as those that took place in Gaza.

The IDF and the Shin Bet will be required to continue their activity against terrorist infrastructures, thwart smuggling or production of combat means, take a suspicious approach also towards Palestinian mechanisms, and prevent by all means the possibility of Hamas taking over the governing institutions, whether directly, through a partnership with another political factor or through proxy actors. This is the meaning of the statement – we must defend ourselves by ourselves.

Published in  Israel Hayom, May 26, 2024.

The type of unbalanced criticism Israel is experiencing today in its war against the genocidal Hamas movement in Gaza isn’t new. Long before Binyamin Netanyahu, Itamar Ben-Gvir, and Betzalel Smotrich were anywhere near Israeli government, the world was fiercely critical of Israel. Rarely have Western pundits brooked understanding for IDF operations against Palestinian terrorists.

I was reminded of this last month when I discovered, while cleaning my office for Pesach, a collection of editorial cartoons published in Canadian newspapers in January 1988 at the beginning of the so-called “first intifada.” (At the time I worked for the Canada-Israel Committee in Toronto.)

The editorial cartoons of three-plus decades ago gave full vent to intimations that Israeli troops were barbaric, and that Israeli policy was Nazi-like or equivalent to South African apartheid. Again, these ugly assertions did not pop up just recently.

In the second week of January 1988, cartoonist Bob Krieger of The Vancouver Province drew a cartoon with Israeli-flagged IDF troops shooting at a Divine hand descending from the heavens with two numbered tablets of stone. The insinuation was that the Israel Defense Forces and the Jewish People were committing abominations against G-d’s most basic Ten Commandments.

Vance Rodewalt of The Calgary Herald sketched an ugly, fat, and smoking Israeli soldier with an enormous rifle lording over an innocent pro-Palestinian protestor whose hands were submissively in the air. The snarky Israeli tells the protestor that “World opinion being what it is, and me being the good guy I am, I’ve decided to give you a fair chance. When I give you the word…. Run for it!” The sweet protester’s placard lays on the ground emblazoned with the words: Down with Jewish oppressors. Long live Palestine.

The Windsor Star carried a cartoon by Edd Uluschak entitled “Modern David and Goliath” which had an outsized Israeli soldier with a smoking machine gun towering over a tiny dead figure with a slingshot.

Similarly, Malcolm Mayes of The Edmonton Journal drew a ghoulish Israeli soldier (with the face of the Grim Reaper) and a smirking Israeli politician (with the face of then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir) standing over a Gazan Palestinian who lies in a pool of blood. The Israeli says to the dead Palestinian: “You have the right to remain silent…”

Carrying further with this Palestinian-as-underdog theme and Israeli-as-butcher theme was Andy Donato of The Toronto Sun. He penciled a Palestinian midget figure throwing rocks and trying to climb up the barrel of an Israeli assault rifle. In another cartoon he had a Palestinian throwing a rock which bounced off the helmet of an Israeli soldier, who responded with deadly fire. The caption reads: “An eye for an eye, ears, nose and throat.”

Brian Gable of The Globe and Mail made it clear that Israel was to blame for the violence, not Palestinians. Repeatedly he depicted Israelis as aggressors and pyromaniacs, pouring or pumping gasoline on homes in the West Bank and Gaza.

Dale Cummings of The Winnipeg Free Press made the same allegation by imprisoning an Arab with a keffiyeh inside an oversized Star of David, with locks on his hands and manacles on his feet.

Dan Murphy of The Vancouver Province offered an “Israel Army Target Practice” session with ponytailed little Arab girls as clay pigeons tossed-up into the sky as somebody yells “PULL.”

To make it explicitly clear what Murphy thinks of Israel (it being an “apartheid” state), he drew a tea-party conversation between Israel’s Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and South Africa’s President P.W. Botha. Shamir says “Arabs, and only Arabs are to be blamed for this unrest!” Botha responds “Indeed! Now let me tell you about the Black interlopers in Africa…”

What is truly amazing is that these vile cartoons are from 1988 – when Shimon Peres (the “Prince of Peace”) was Alternate Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Yitzhak Rabin was Minister of Defense, and Yitzhak Navon was Minister of Education and Culture (all of the Labor Alignment), alongside Prime Minister Shamir and Deputy Prime Minister and Housing Minister David Levy of the Likud.

This was long before the rise and fall of the Oslo peace process, long before Binyamin Netanyahu became prime minister, long before Itamar Ben-Gvir graduated grade six, and long before baby Betzalel Smotrich could say the word “settlement.”

This was long before Israel dared to (was forced to) bomb terrorist bunkers or blow-up the homes of Palestinian terrorists. At the time, all IDF troops dared to do (under orders from Yitzhak Rabin) was club Palestinian attackers with wooden batons and fire plastic bullets at the limbs of Palestinian terrorists armed with Molotov cocktails. It was long before the much ballyhooed and mostly bogus “settler violence” narrative.

It was a time when the Palestinian Liberation Organization was openly and proudly terrorist and formally designated as such by all Western countries.

It was a time of great in-house Palestinian bloodletting, with as many Palestinians slaughtered by other Palestinians for being “collaborators” with Israel as there were Palestinians shot by Israel while putting down the intifada (– Palestinian terrorism which also killed and wounded thousands of Israelis).

Despite all the above, the cartoonists and editorialists of 1988 had zero sympathy for attacked Israelis and oodles of sympathy for the attacking Palestinians. Even back then – again long before the “obstructionist” Israeli right-wing under Netanyahu came to power – the world was more than ready to paint the IDF in the darkest hues and label Israel as criminal.

So much for blaming Israel’s hasbara (reputational) problems on the Israeli right wing. I’m just saying.

Published in The Jerusalem Post, May 3, 2024; and Israel Hayom, May 5, 2024. A selection of the editorial cartoons is online at https://davidmweinberg.com/2024/05/03/anti-zionism-isnt-new/

This week’s revelation about the complicity of personnel working for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in the Hamas October 7 attack on Israel is not surprising. Not to anybody who has tracked the nefariousness of this organization over recent decades.

Nor is it a surprise that over the past three months IDF troops have found Hamas weaponry in, and terror attack tunnels beneath, nearly every UNRWA institution in Gaza – schools, clinics, hospitals, and more.

No, there is no surprise here. UNRWA is rotten to its core. It validates and perpetuates the Palestinian war against Israel instead of helping to solve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. It is an obstacle to peace.

Despite this, Western leaders almost certainly will restore and even increase their funding of UNRWA soon enough – because they mistakenly view the organization as an irreplaceable, indispensable humanitarian tool.

Alas, nothing could be farther from the truth! Here are ten myths about UNRWA that must be busted.

Myth 1: UNRWA is a UN organization.

 Well, technically it is, but in fact UNRWA is a Palestinian outfit with Palestinian employees and Palestinian objectives. Ninety-nine percent of its 13,000 employees in Gaza are Palestinian, alongside a tiny number of international employees who cover for Palestinian corruption and Islamic radicalism. It is a Palestinian boondoggle.

Since most Palestinians in Gaza support Hamas, it stands to reason that many if not the majority of UNRWA employees are Hamas supporters too. According to Israeli intelligence a full ten percent of UNRWA Gaza staff are identifiable Hamas or Islamic Jihad activists; hundreds of others openly celebrated the October 7 rapes and murders; and 190 UNRWA employees are “hardened militants” – fighters and killers with unmistakable terrorist records.

This is far more than “a few bad apples in the basket,” as some champions for UNRWA said this week.

Myth 2: UNRWA is a relief organization for Palestinians.

This has not been true for many years. UNRWA provides little food or humanitarian aid. The vast majority of its budget is devoted to Palestinian schools and hospitals, which is an anomaly without precedent anywhere else in the world.

There is no other UN organization that covers health and education costs for almost an entire population – in place of its local government. UNRWA runs the relevant institutions and pays the bills throughout Gaza, instead of Hamas having to provide health, education, and welfare for its own constituents. Hamas relies on UNRWA and its Western donors to operate core provinces of Gazan government, leaving Hamas scot-free to build terror attack tunnels and camp-out in underground military bunkers for war against Israel.

Myth 3: UNRWA is a neutral organization.

No, it is not. UNRWA is a political outfit that shapes the story of Palestinian victimhood, preserves and prolongs Palestinian refugeehood, and educates towards perpetual war with Israel including Palestinian dreams of destroying Israel through refugee “return.” UNRWA is the most deleterious driver of a narrative of Israeli criminality, for 75 years now and running.

In particular, UNRWA keeps conflict with Israel alive by granting fictitious refugee status to an ever-inflating number of Palestinians – 20 times beyond the scope of real refugeehood! – while refusing to permanently resettle even one single refugee.

Myth 4: UNRWA is a moderating and calming force.

Even though international wags (and even parts of the Israeli defense establishment) have made this claim for years, it simply holds no water. UNRWA is deeply impregnated and dominated by Hamas, and it certainly was of no taming or tempering effect before, after, or on October 7. Everybody can do without the make-believe soothing brainwaves of UNRWA.

Watchdog organizations tirelessly have documented the hate taught in UNRWA classrooms. Palestinian children learn that Jews are liars and fraudsters, and that Jews spread corruption which will lead to their annihilation. Terrorists are glorified as a role models. Lessons which incite to violence are taught across all grades and subjects, including in math and science class. Inevitably, the systematic teaching of hatred and violence within the UNRWA school system is Palestinian terror against Israel.

Myth 5: Palestinians in Gaza truly need global funding for their most basic needs.

From what the IDF has discovered in Gaza over the past three months it does not seem that Gazans are exceptionally needy or helpless.

The Hamas government in Gaza appears to be perfectly capable of undertaking big, sophisticated, and expensive projects ranging from underground tunnel and bunker networks that rival London’s underground subway system, to industrial weapons factories built to the best engineering standards, to well-organized commando units with top-notch intelligence capabilities and crafty attack planning skills.

Palestinians in Gaza do not suffer from underfunding, sub-par education, or a deprivation of skilled labor, but from self-inflicted wounds that stem from a distortion of priorities. For decades they have prioritized warfare against Israel over building their own society in a healthy way. They need Western guidance (pressure) in re-ordering their priorities, not necessarily more cash or other aid.

Myth 6: Palestinians in Gaza need UNRWA to keep them alive.

 This is not true according to Palestinians themselves. Even as some Western funders of UNRWA have suspended donations to UNRWA in recent days, the main concern expressed by Palestinians relates to a possible denouement in global recognition of their cause. They are much more distressed about the political blow to their status as privileged victims than they are about the money.

There are hundreds of social media posts and other testimonies indicating this; that Gazans see UNRWA far less as a critical provider of social services and emergency aid and much more as the vital validator of Palestinian identity in their never-ending war with Israel.

Myth 7: Without an immediate restoration of full UNRWA funding, Palestinians in Gaza will starve.

There is no “dire crisis” in access to food and water in Gaza. Nobody there is on the “verge of starvation.” Hundreds of trucks with goods and fuels enter Gaza every day despite the war, based on donations from Arab and (still) Western countries. Hamas demonstrably confiscates millions of dollars’ worth of such supplies for its army and favored elites, about which UNRWA has done nothing. But a steady flow of goods into Gaza continues, even if UNRWA’s pockets are a bit less padded.

Myth 8: UNRWA is the most efficient way to deliver assistance to Palestinians.

No, it certainly is not, and not just because UNRWA lets Hamas run-off with lots of goods. There are far more efficient, less corrupt, and less grossly political aid agencies, some of which already are present in Gaza (and the West Bank), that can be mobilized to replace UNRWA. This includes USAID, UNICEF, and the World Food Programme. They could all do the work without succumbing to Palestinian legerdemain.

Myth 9: UNRWA can be fixed.

UNRWA needs more than an “urgent audit,” as the EU reluctantly mumbled this week, and much more than “enhanced due diligence and other oversight mechanisms,” as one unfriendly-to-Israel congressman grudgingly called-for.

UNRWA needs to be abolished so that Gaza’s transition away from aid and toward economic development, and away from genocidal fantasies and toward peacebuilding, can begin quickly. It is certainly true that the current division of labor – UNRWA services above ground, Hamas terror operations below ground and from within UNRWA facilities – cannot continue.

This requires different international actors that can develop productive industry and jobs in Gaza, and that can lead the construction and operation of civilian services. International funding may still be necessary, but it should be administered by foreign governments directly and by different organizations that are subject to continuous oversight and rigorous accountability.

Myth 10: Wartime is not the right time to shutter UNRWA.

Now is the perfect time to do so. As Israel liberates Gaza from Hamas, the international community can unshackle Palestinians from UNRWA. And at the same time Israel can unchain itself from destructive dependency on UNRWA and its problematic Israeli counterpart, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories – COGAT.

Then the rebuilding of Gaza can advance, free from rank corruption, destructive indoctrination, the coddling of terrorism, and overall moral rot that for too long has contaminated international aid politics for Palestinians.

Published in The Jerusalem Post, 02.02.2024

Key Messages:

• No other international organization in the past 75 years has enabled, supported, fostered and empowered the Palestinian rejectionist and anti-Israel ideology (the “from the River to the Sea” concept) as UNRWA has done.
• Alternatives exist for providing humanitarian aid, welfare, health and education services to the Palestinians, other than through UNRWA.
• The Palestinians in the Gaza Strip should not have been treated as refugees in the first place, and the provision of aid to the Strip’s residents should not have been tied to refugee status.The promises of a reform in UNRWA should not be relied upon; numerous such attempts have been made in the past – and all have failed.
•  IntroductionOne of the Israeli hostages abducted to Gaza on October 7 revealed, on returning to Israel, that he had been held at the home of an UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency) teacher[1]. In the past two weeks, IDF forces have presented evidence of weaponry and ammunition having been found under UNRWA crates[2]. However, the true problem with UNRWA is not one specific incident or another. The true problem with UNRWA is its very existence.No other entity in the past 75 years has enabled, actualized, supported, fostered and empowered the Palestinian rejectionist ideology as UNRWA has done. This ideology denies the basic legitimacy of the existence of a State of Israel, nurtures a perpetual refugee status of the majority of Palestinians, and demands a massive return of those “refugees” into the State of Israel (referred to as the “Right of Return”). This ideology played a key role in the horrors of October 7.Background

  UNRWA was founded in December 1949[3] as a temporary agency for 18 months, to rehabilitate the Arab refugees from Israel’s War of Independence. Ever since, the agency has been operating as a temporary entity whose mandate is extended every three years, without having stricken off even a single person’s name from the lists of refugees. Instead of an agency for aiding or rehabilitating the Palestinian refugees, UNRWA has become an agency for perpetuating the Palestinian refugees’ existence until they can ‘return’ en masse to Israel.

  According to the agency’s records, there are 1.6 million “registered Palestinian refugees” in the Gaza Strip today (as of 2022)[4], out of a total of 2.1 million Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip[5]; i.e., over 75%. The Palestinians and the Arab countries have always refused to include the Palestinian refugees under the auspices of the UN’s global refugee agency (UNHCR). As a result, the definition of a “Palestinian refugee” differs from that of any other refugee in the world.

  In the context of the Gaza Strip, there are several key differences between the definitions. The first is that a refugee anywhere in the world must be located outside their country in order to be considered a refugee, whereas a Palestinian refugee need not be. “Palestinian refugees” currently living in the Gaza Strip view the Strip as part of Palestine; meaning, they are in “Palestine”, yet are nevertheless treated as “refugees from Palestine”. Such a state of affairs does not exist anywhere else in the world. Refugees all over the world are people who have left their country and crossed an internationally-recognized border. The Palestinians who relocated from Jaffa or Ashkelon to Gaza during Israel’s War of Independence did not cross such a border, and accordingly should never have been treated as refugees in the first place.

  Another difference between UNRWA and UNHCR concerns their treatment of offspring. In the case of the Palestinians, any child born to a “registered refugee” is automatically registered as a refugee. UNHCR has a more complex process, with registration not being automatic and being considered on a case-by-case basis[6]. It is only in the case of the Palestinians that a state of affairs has come about where the number of the refugees’ descendants registered as ‘refugees’ far exceeds the number of the original refugees. The result is that hundreds of thousands of the people living in Gaza have never left their homes, are living in what they themselves consider to be Palestine, yet are nevertheless treated as refugees from Palestine. This is completely absurd.

  The Problem

  UNRWA grants a fictitious refugee status to over 75% of Gaza’s population, thereby providing them with international endorsement of their belief that their true home is not in Gaza, but rather in the Israeli cities of Ashkelon, Ashdod, Jaffa or Beersheba. This is a political refugee status, intended to perpetuate the conflict. This refugee status provides the Palestinians with a pretext to continue their war against the Jews.

  Demanding their ‘return’ into Israel is the principal mechanism through which they hope to transform Israel from a Jewish state into an Arab one.

  UNRWA, which is funded by the international community at a cost of about one billion dollars every year, sends the Palestinians the exact opposite message from the one they should receive. Instead of conveying to them an unequivocal message that the world has no intention of supporting the Palestinian delusions to supplant Israel, the world is doing the opposite. The messages conveyed by the mere fact of UNRWA’s existence, and naturally also through the education system and the diplomatic and public mantle provided to the Palestinians by the agency, are that the demand for Israel’s destruction is a legitimate one. UNRWA is the international expression of the antisemitic calls of “from the River to the Sea”, since both mean the same thing: a demand for the elimination of the Jewish state and its replacement with an Arab state.

  For the Palestinians, UNRWA primary importance lies not in its role as a technical agency providing education and health services. For the Palestinians, UNRWA serves as an insurance policy issued to them by the international community, and an endorsement both of their own self-concept as having experienced the greatest calamity in the history of humanity (the “Nakba”) and as being entitled to one day return to the territory of the State of Israel. When, in 2018, the U.S. government decided to cut off the agency’s funding, Palestinians’ reactions did not focus on the possible impairment of the quality of education and health services; rather, they expressed indignation and outrage that their “Right of Return” was being tampered with.

  The Solution

  As long as Gazans believe themselves to be refugees and harbor hopes of one day returning into Israel’s territory, funds and aid delivered to the Strip for purposes of constructing housing will actually be used for constructing terror infrastructure aimed at advancing the vision of ‘Return’.

  For this reason, UNRWA must be dismantled, and any aid of any kind that the international community wishes to provide to Gaza must be provided through other avenues. The best option is to provide such aid through the national aid agencies operated by various countries, some of which are already active in Gaza (and in many other places around the world.) Thus, for example, the U.S. provides aid all over the world, and in Gaza as well, through USAID. Similar government agencies exist in the EU, UK, Norway, Sweden and many other European countries. Apolitical U.N. agencies, such as the World Food Programme, can also play a role. In any case, the aid must be completely unassociated with any political aspect of the conflict, and from the fictitious refugee status. Just as the international community has provided aid in numerous countries around the world, such as Haiti or Turkey, in recent years, without tying that aid to refugee status, such should be the case in Gaza and the Palestinian Authority as well.

  Conclusion

  UNRWA fuels the mindset of a Palestinian ‘Return’ and serves as an important pillar of the rejectionist Nakba ethos. Since Israel’s cooperation with UNRWA has been voluntary from the outset, Israel can terminate its cooperation with UNRWA.

  Any international aid to the Gaza Strip, whether in welfare, health and education services or in any other field, must be provided through other channels, and in no case through UNRWA.

  Attempts to “fix” or “improve” UNRWA should in no case be relied upon. This is an agency whose primary purpose is to perpetuate the Palestinian ideology of return. All past attempts to carry out reforms of UNRWA have failed – and for good reason. Such is the organization’s very DNA, and it cannot be changed. Therefore, UNRWA should have no role in a post-Hamas Gaza.

  [1] https://x.com/bokeralmog/status/1729929618742755477?s=20

  [2] https://www.mako.co.il/news-military/6361323ddea5a810/Article-b3b05439b5a2c81027.htm

  [3] UN General Assembly Resolution 302, Assistance to Palestine Refugees, A/RES/302(IV) (December 8, 1949). https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/RESOLUTION/GEN/NR0/051/21/PDF/NR005121.pdf?OpenElement

  [4] “UNRWA in Action” Factsheet. https://www.unrwa.org/sites/default/files/content/resources/unrwa_in_numbers_eng_1.pdf

  [5] CIA World Factbook. https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/gaza-strip/

  [6] “Procedural Standards for Refugee Status Determination under UNHCR’s Mandate,” https://www.refworld.org/pdfid/577e17944.pdf.